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Friday, 4 January 2013

Italian Champion Baiocco returns to British Superbikes with Ducati

Reigning
Italian Superbike Champion Matteo Baiocco has signed a one-year deal
to join the Moto Rapido Ducati team to contest this year’s MCE
British Superbike Championship.

The
28-year-old, from Osimo in Italy, rode for the Winchester-based squad
at Silverstone last year as an injury replacement and returns for a
full season with the blessing of Ducati, where he is an official 1199
Panigale test rider.

“I
am very happy to finally formalise my agreement with the team Moto
Rapido. We have been working for this together for a long time and I
really want to thank Steve Moore for this opportunity. During 2012 I
had already got to know Moto Rapido team and BSB, I like the team
very much and I am excited to race in BSB,” said Baoix, as he is
known in his native country.

“This
will be a very important season for me after winning in Italy and I
look forward to the challenge of riding in BSB and will do my best to
be competitive in the best national series in the world. I want to
say thank you to Ducati Corse and Ducati UK who will help us in this
season.

A
big hello to all the British fans that have a great passion and
loyalty for racing.”

Team
principal Steve Moore added: “Firstly I am really pleased to
continue our project in BSB with Ducati and I am very happy to have
put pen to paper with Matteo over the Christmas break. He is quite a
character and I am sure the BSB fans will love him.

Matteo
is twice Italian Superbike Champion with Ducati and his strong links
to the factory brings increased technical support from Ducati Corse.
With the upgrade to the 1199R Panigale this year we are expecting to
progress well. We are still a new team so the challenge has been
huge, but this season is looking stronger than ever for us and we
have more exciting news still to come.”

“Thank
you to our customers and sponsors including Solent Scientific,
Aerodynamics, Motul for the continued support. On a personal note I
would like to thank Scott Smart for the hard work of the last few
seasons with us,his technical ability is astonishing and has helped
us develop all areas of the 1199. We’ll be cheering him on in
Supersport this year.”